


Libertè, Egalitè, Espèrer

by gwynseren



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel, French History RPF, French Revolution RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Feels, Foreshadowing, French Revolution, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Plans For The Future, Poetry, Short One Shot, Stand Alone, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 21:44:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17836712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwynseren/pseuds/gwynseren
Summary: Camille and Max share a quiet moment in the summer of their school years when the Revolution is just an idea and their youth is in full blaze. In which they share hopes and Camille places his trust in what Max promises he can provide. Warnings for oral sex and tragic hindsight and mature content in which I may or may not compare the french revolution to a blow job.





	Libertè, Egalitè, Espèrer

Louis-le-grande. St Louis. Quinze, dix, quatre. Camille loves Auguste the best: such noble ideals, such blithesome indecision. The hats. And the dedication to mahogany. Much can be forgiven in the context of a gold inlay.

Max would not agree, but would Camille to concern himself with obeying the ins and outs of Rosbespierre's disapproval he would end up with nothing to do.

“it’s journalism,” Max is saying now with much distaste, “I quite see why you do it, you understand, but I don’t quite see why you wouldn’t give yourself over to higher mediums”

Camille does not answer him because so far he has only heard Max with his ears, which are incapable of speaking, and not yet with his mouth, which is. His mouth is preoccupied; too busy hearing the singing of Robespierre’s fingers. They are like larks: that is the country in him. The nameless village, the provincial. The lines are starving staves; to Camille they whisper secrets. I have never liked the taste of cherries, they tell him. Camille will steal him lilacs from the hothouses and from their petals brew a tea. Too sweet, Max will say. But his fingers will sing a midsummer's melody wrapped around the cool China painted forget-me-not blue.

“the people" Camille murmurs eventually into the crevices of fingertips, “give it to them quick, witty, easy. The poor don’t have the backs for long speeches.”

The stammer – always there, his father, the window, dark cupboards, freefalling from grace – is drowned out by the singing of Robespierre’s fingers. So interesting, so strange, so delicious. Camille feels a twinge, an evergreen excitement. What: more, more, more it demands. Camille is greedy like a fattened cat; it is not his fault they queue up to feed him.

Vive la gourmandise!

Oh yes, France is chewed up over it, like a baron cuckold by a ten franc whore.

Vive!

Camille intends to.

He starts by abandoning the fingers.

“you are wrong, Camille. It is far too important to give over to laziness of word or stamina. Every detail must be articulated, every syllable given over to examination. We owe no less than a prostration of devoted servitude. We are the Cause.”

But Camille has found a hip and he smells salt and the cawing of crows and he forgets that conversation is not the same as writing: that it is a collection of words that demands of him his very breath. He thinks that Max can hear him, in his head. We are if you say we are, he tells him. Camille  bends his head and touches the skin of Robespierre's hip with his lips first, then skims faintly with his tongue. Max squirms and Camille hears laughter, his own, ringing in his ears as if from far away. He brings in his nose, teeth, tongue again. When Max shudders Camille steals it from him and ripples right down to his organs.

But he is more surprised than he should be when Max twists a hand into his hair and forces his face down further.

It is hot, under the August sun, under the shade of the tree in the garden of the grounds of Louis-le-grande. So hot. But it is also cool against their lazy, naked skin.

“can you see it,” Max is saying as his eyelids flutter and close, “ahhhhhh Camille....the intellectual freedom....the beginning of a new era for France....an end to poverty under the Crown.....the free streets of Paris running with gold.....”

“And cake,” Camille says, lifting his head and pausing a moment, “that was journalism, you know"

He bends his head back, one finger drawing on the button hole of Robespierre's trousers. He remembers the first time, and the second, and for a while they all blur into one as he burrows his face into his work, feeling the heat of Max growing; Max; Maximilian; Maximilian Robespierre and then he has all of him flooded into his mouth. This is the part that Camille loves the best – the growing. Fascinating, how it bobs and rises, poking its head like the crest of a wave, pulsating in the air, floating. A fully hard dick, wet, riveted, penetrating as steel could sometimes be too violent, too demanding, too _fini_. Camille prefers the dizzying shudders of the first flushes, of taking the soft pink flesh and suckling the muscles into life leaving the man attached to it in a mist of arousal that is all Desmoulins. He has them fully then, consumed by him, lost in him, purring like best Parisien socialites overcome by what he has done to them, what he has woken in them – until their desire overtakes their arousal and then Camille must do his best to keep up.

That is the difference, he understands, between giving a blowjob and being fucked in the mouth. It is much the same difference as between those who are rich and those who are poor.

Maximilian is the promise that will devastate those differences.

That’s why Camille minds it less when Max turns from receiving to fucking, because no matter how much Robespierre holds Camille's head down into his thrusts, when he cums he still always looks surprised like he isn’t sure what has happened to him. If this new order he keeps talking about is anything like that, then Camille can see how it would be good for everyone.

Briefly he thinks it is not like this with women. Women make a play out of the surprise of their desire. If she does not cum, she is not really surprised, but if she does that does not surprise her either, because she had already decided that she would. Camille prefers men because while it is always ruined in the end, it is more exciting to live through. But with women he knows he is safer, because they are not thieves.

Perhaps if there must be a revolution, if should be done by women then.

But Camille has missed most of what Robespierre was talking about. Max's head is filled with bright visions of the future. Camille’s is full of colours that keep changing.

Max ruts and the tree shakes and Camille keeps his head steady and his jaw locked and feels the sun getting brighter and brighter. When it is over he spits onto the grass, rolls onto his side. Max does not curl against him; he aligns himself, like planets, at the shoulder, hip and ankle. The heat lulls Camille and he stretches lazily half turned-on, half asleep. Next to him, Max smells like champagne; a premonition of Parliament and prosperity.

“we will be the heralds of enlightenment,” Max whispers in his ear: his hearts greatest excitement unfurled from the shattering of his orgasm, “you will see Camille. It will like nothing ever seen before. We shall eclipse Rome.”

Of that Camille is certain, for the Romans had no grasp of divine callings; they had been too focused on their many interchangable Gods.

But France seeks emancipation. Libertè, Ègalitè, Fraternitè.

What could be more godly than to do away with God?

What could be more freeing than death?

Camille stirs against the ground. In agriculture, to preserve the soil and prepare for future growth, the earth must first be burned.

Maximilian taught him that.

He doesn’t remember why - but Camille thinks it is far better to be the one setting things on fire, anyway.

He turns to Max who smiles at him contentedly and Camille feels the earth slowing down. When Robespierre looks at him, like he is looking at him now, it makes all the noises stop. All those vibrations, the constant spiral of punctures and the shifting earth and the smells that faze and blind him – Max makes them all still, because he is the only one who is not frightened of looking at them directly, even though he does not know that they are there.

And that is why Camille will help him sell this Revolution.

Because Maximilian Robespierre cannot possibly be a thief.


End file.
